(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of telecommunication and, more particularly, to a system and method for more effectively rendering on a server computer system and transferring the image data across a network to a remote computer system.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Many graphics applications use the standard OpenGL library for rendering and displaying 3D graphics on local graphics hardware. There are times when it would be desirable to render locally and display remotely because a remote device at the remote system may not be as powerful as the local device, or the remote system may have no 3D capability at all. Unfortunately, OpenGL does not provide an efficient mechanism for local rendering and remote display. Thus, an OpenGL application may slow down dramatically when operating in this mode.
OpenGL may be used to render and display on a remote system by sending commands over a network. However, when a graphics application running on a local computer system is required to display graphics images on a remote computer system, rendering time may be significantly increased, because protocols are not designed for efficient remote rendering and display. The standard OpenGL library functions create a window for the remote system based on the characteristics of the graphics devices in the remote system. The local computer system then renders image data to the remote window.
There exists a need for a system and methodology capable of local rendering and remote display without modification to the graphics software application (especially an OpenGL application) executing on the local computer system.